Super Engagement

Over the course of the Super Bowl, we saw some impressive spikes in engagement on Reddit. The NFL community alone drew over 1.3 million unique viewers on Sunday while r/SuperbOwl (an owl-themed community whose annual in-joke confuses thousands of redditors each year) saw a 339% increase in traffic from last year’s game.

Meanwhile, both r/Eagles and r/Patriots were visited by more than double their total number of subscribers on Sunday. But at the end of the day, the Eagles managed to win the Super Bowl and the “Subreddit Bowl,” with r/Eagles attracting over 290,000 unique viewers compared to the roughly 240,000 viewers on r/Patriots.

Game Day Coverage

As the coin toss approached, redditors started making their posts to discuss the game with their favorite communities, like r/NFL, r/eagles, and r/Patriots. But the chatter wasn’t limited to teams that made it to Minneapolis; redditors whose teams didn’t make it were abuzz with Super Bowl fever as well (or, in the case of the Vikings, the Super Bowl blues).

Not only did other team communities join in, but other sport communities did too. In fact, one of the most popular live discussion threads on Sunday was from r/Hockey, which generated over 16,000 comments filled with expert sports analysis, like “Hey guys, why is the rink’s ice painted green?” and “That was a weird puck drop.”

Watching for the Commercials

For redditors who weren’t particularly invested in the game, there was a thriving discussion of the commercials, with Tide and Doritos coming out as fan favorites in r/videos and Jeep earning the respect of r/cars.

And during the halftime show—with a special live discussion of the music in r/popheads—redditors saw meme gold in Justin Timberlake’s performance, and even took to r/AskReddit to imagine what kind of show they would put on if they were in charge of halftime.

Final Score

Perhaps the most delightful Super Bowl post from an unexpected community came from r/EaglesTrophyCase. A long-running joke on Reddit since 2014, the community previously had no content at all, offering a blank page to represent the team’s history of not winning the Super Bowl.

After the clock ran out with the Eagles on top, the community received its first and only post.

The winning design for the r/AskReddit birthday t-shirt contest, by u/p0yo.

But first, for those who aren’t familiar with the community, r/AskReddit has been a staple of our site since its inception back in January of 2008, as recognizable to redditors now as upvotes and AMAs. With over 18 million subscribers, it’s one of the largest communities on Reddit, where users ask unique questions each day in posts that receive thousands of replies filled with surprising anecdotes, hilarious jokes, and even the occasional poem and watercolour painting.

And these are just the questions. The real magic of r/AskReddit is in the comments that follow, where redditors have shared some of the most fascinating and unique stories on the internet, every day for the past ten years.

Here are a few of our favorites.

Today You, Tomorrow Me

When our co-founder Alexis Ohanian appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last year, he was asked for his favorite Reddit post of all time. In response, he shared the story of this classic comment from r/AskReddit.

10/10 With Rice

On the day after Thanksgiving back in 2014, u/DO_U_EVN_SPAGHETTI asked a question that kicked off one of the most absurd experiments in culinary history: taste-testing a range of foods with and without rice, giving each a score out of 10.

OP’s responses to the challenges in the comments—from chocolate-covered bacon with rice (6/10) to bubblegum with rice (8/10)—quickly became a meme (with its very own OutOfTheLoop thread), which redditors still reference to this day.

Lo He Leído

Some of the best r/AskReddit threads don’t end in the usual plethora of unique anecdotes, but instead encourage thousands of people to join in on a spontaneous joke. When one user posed an innocent question asking for help discovering the official name for disco balls, redditors filled the comments with unhelpful answers saying “disco ball” (don’t worry, OP eventually found out the real answer: “specular sphere”).

When another user inquired about interesting novelty bots on Reddit—like u/haikubot, the bot that turns 17-syllable comments into haikus, or u/RemindMeBot, which sends reminder messages when summoned—thousands of (human) redditors decided to pretend to be bots themselves, responding with the line, “Every account on reddit is a bot except you.”

The most famous of these threads, however, is a post from 2010, in which one redditor asked the community for technical help with a unique problem. Their Reddit account appeared to have gotten stuck with Spanish as the default language. Unfortunately, OP wasn’t able to read Spanish, but even more unfortunate was the fact that they failed to add a “[Serious]” tag to their post, which would’ve ensured straightforward answers in the comments.

Glitch in the MatrixGlitch in the Matrix

This question proved so intriguing that redditors have posted it multiple times over the years, sharing a fresh batch of spooky, head-scratching stories each time. It even sparked a new community, r/Glitch_In_The_Matrix, which now has almost 200,000 subscribers.

Reddit vs. Snail

Every day, redditors try their best to come up with questions that have never been asked in r/AskReddit before, but given the long history of the community, that’s a pretty tall order. Luckily, some incredibly inventive users have come to the rescue with questions that defy the odds, like this one from u/Andy316619.

Today, Boston’s NPR news station WBUR premiered a brand new podcast in partnership with Reddit. Titled Endless Thread (as a nod to Reddit’s ever-entertaining comment threads), the show brings to life some of the most compelling stories on our site, with well-crafted audio narratives from host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Amory Sivertson.

“As a journalist, I’ve been fascinated by Reddit for years, but I’ve also become an avid redditor,” Ben shares in a WBUR press release. “I’m always surprised at what a mystery Reddit is to people who don’t use it. I’m looking forward to solving that mystery for the uninitiated, and helping redditors share their incredible, real life stories with the world.”

Art by u/callisterart

For the series premiere, Ben introduces listeners to Reddit’s nonononoyes community and kicks off the episode with a series of death-defying, IRL “nonononoyes” stories, from a photographer escaping a 100-foot waterfall to airline passengers who survived an engineering failure that sent their pilot halfway out of the cockpit in the middle of a flight.

Between thoughtful interview segments and cheeky narration, Ben and Amory discuss the stories and chat about posts and comments they’ve found on Reddit, bouncing around communities large and small. (Even the credits include a few sneaky Reddit references.)

“We’re going to listen to redditors tell their stories,” Ben shares at the top of the episode. “We are going to wade into the comments. It’s gonna be great! And weird, and fun, and, hopefully if we pay attention, we might even learn a thing or two.”

Endless Thread is in good company at WBUR, the NPR station responsible for hit radio shows like Car Talk and acclaimed podcasts like Modern Love, the audio companion to the New York Times column by the same name. Over the course of this season, sponsored in part by Wistia video hosting and Zip Recruiter, listeners can expect a similar style of highly produced audio treatment with a unique, Reddit-y twist that takes you on a journey just as fascinating and unexpected as some of the best threads on our site. Upcoming episodes include a personal look at life on the edge of homelessness, a grand retelling of a benevolent wartime smuggler forgotten by history, a guided tour of pre-apocalyptic seed storage, and more wide-ranging stories inspired by Reddit threads.

2017 was a jam-packed year for all of us. Here at Reddit HQ, our teams have been hard at work to ship more product than ever before—from native video to major upgrades to our mobile apps. Meanwhile, redditors have been hard at work creating more content, conversations, and communities than ever before—with 230,000+ Reddit Gifts sign-ups, 7,000,000+ Reddit Live thread updates, 900,000,000+ comments, and 12,000,000,000+ upvotes, all in the past year!

Sure, the year’s not quite over yet, but we wanted to take a moment to share some highlights from 2017 (and a few of our communities’ own “best of 2017” posts).

Community Best-of Threads

Right now, communities across Reddit are working on their own “Best of 2017” posts, from r/HighQualityGifs to r/birdswitharms. If you want to see all the very best of the best-of threads, check out r/bestof2017. And from all of us at Reddit HQ, Happy Snoo Year!

The next wave of the official Reddit apps are in the App Store now! Today, iPhone and Android users will see some of the biggest upgrades to our mobile app experience since launching our apps last year.

To inform this update, we sifted through feedback from users across our communities and prioritized the improvements that redditors wanted most—from an improved suite of mobile mod tools to an all-new theater mode experience. Here’s a quick tour of new features you’ll find in the latest update.

Mod Tools, Mod Tools, Mod Tools

Our number one focus with this update was improving our app for moderators, giving them all the tools they need to help their communities flourish directly from their phones.

Here are just a few highlights:

Mod Mode

When mod mode is switched “on” in our mobile apps, mods will now be able to approve content, remove content, and flag content as spam within the communities they moderate.

Mod Queue

We know that moderating large communities can require a lot of work, so we’ve included support for bulk actions (e.g., addressing large numbers of similar reports at once) in our mobile mod queue. Mod queue is the primary view that moderators use to action content on desktop, and we’re happy to announce that it’s now possible from our apps.

Modmail

Mods will be able to access modmail from the new mod menu within communities that they moderate.

Mod Management & Approved Submitters

With a single front-page post, a small Reddit community can go from a handful of subscribers to tens of thousands overnight, and more subscribers means more moderators. By adding mod management to our apps, we wanted to ensure that all moderators have the tools they need to view and update their list of moderators quickly and conveniently. Mods now also have the ability to add and remove approved submitters to their community in the app.

In addition to mod tools, this update includes a number of upgrades to our app experience that all users can enjoy.

Theater Mode

Theater mode is one of the features we’re most excited about with this update. While much of the magic of Reddit is in the comments and text-based discussions, Reddit is also home to some of the best visual content on the internet—from viral videos and humorous reaction gifs to original nature photography and pictures of evil buildings. Now, redditors can use theater mode to get a visual-first experience of their favorite communities.

Live Comments (iOS)

Reddit is one of the biggest destinations online for live updates on whatever you’re interested in, so we’ve worked hard to support live commenting in our iOS app. Whether you’re watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones with the superfans of r/gameofthrones, following game-day threads in r/NFL, or searching for breaking news updates on natural disasters, this update gives our mobile users a more real-time experience than ever before.

Safari View Controller (iOS)

This feature allows users to select Safari as their in-app browser, rather than using our native in-app browser. With this update, each user’s Safari settings will be respected when using it as a browser within our app.

Post Flair Functionality

For many communities on Reddit, flair is an important tool to distinguish different types of content, but in the past it’s been difficult to add on mobile. Now, it’s easier than ever for both users to modify flair from their phones. No desktop required.

Comment Speed Read Button (Android)

When we launched our app, we added a “speed read” button to the iOS app, which allows users to move quickly between the top-level comments in any given discussion on the site. We included it as a bonus feature at the time, but it’s been so popular that we’ve brought it to Android as well, making this a standard feature on all of our apps.

In-Feed Usernames for OPs

We’re constantly working to make sure the original content that makes Reddit so entertaining is attributed back to the users behind it who deserve the “creddit.” In the past two years, we launched embeds for posts and comments and made sharing posts easier through our recently released crosspost feature. With this update, we’re making sure the usernames behind the content are always visible by adding usernames to the app’s home feed.

Trophy Case and Cake Day

Redditors earn trophies for a wide range of accomplishments on the site, like having the best comment, submitting a link that sparks a lively discussion, participating in beta tests, or just spending another year as a redditor. As we continue to get more users whose first experience of Reddit is on the mobile app, making sure features like the trophy case live on in the apps is our way of preserving the legacy of our oldest users.

Birthdays are great, but on Reddit, people really only care when it’s their “Cake Day,” or the anniversary of when they first became a redditor. (No really: just check out r/cakeday.) On this most sacred day, a user’s name reflects a small, pixelated cake icon on our desktop site. With this release, we’ve updated the look of our icon and made sure our mobile users know when to wish each other a happy Cake Day.

Chat (iOS)

Finally, we recently beta-launched Chat, our new real-time messaging feature. With this update, iOS users can test out Chat by opting in to the feature and having conversations with your fellow redditors (and giving us feedback by messaging u/chat_us_feedback!).

What’s Next?

This is just the start for the next wave of upgrades to our mobile apps. We’re looking forward to collecting more feedback—and rolling out more features redditors love—in the coming months.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce a partnership two years in the making, harnessing the power of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence technology to deliver the best possible search experiences for Bing users and analytical tools for brands and marketers.

As our co-founder Alexis Ohanian shared earlier today in his presentation at Microsoft’s AI conference, we’re kicking off the partnership by unveiling two new products that apply Microsoft’s AI tools to Reddit’s vast data:

The Power BI suite of solution templates for brand management and targeting on Reddit: a comprehensive set of business intelligence solutions enabling brands, marketers, and budget owners to quickly analyze their Reddit footprint and determine how, where, and with whom to engage in the Reddit community.

The Content You Love, Now Easier to Find

Reddit is home to the most engaging and authentic conversations online with more than 2.5 million comments per day across 138,000 active communities. Now, Bing is making it easier than ever to surface that content through smarter search results.

As part of the Intelligent Search features launching today, Bing users will notice three key search experiences that return the most relevant content possible from Reddit’s vast community:

If you type in “reddit” and the name of a Reddit community, like “aww” or “data is beautiful,” the relevant subreddits will show up in a dedicated results section. Better still, Bing will surface a sneak peak of the community with the top conversations of the day.

Mobile view of Bing’s cross-platform Reddit AMA search experience

If you type in the name of someone who’s done an AMA—let’s say, Dr. Jane Goodall—their past or upcoming AMAs will surface along with additional information about Jane. l. Bing will give snapshots of completed AMAs and, for users just searching for “Reddit AMAs” in general, a carousel of popular AMAs.

Mobile view of Bing’s cross-platform Reddit Q&A search experience

Last but certainly not least, Bing users whose queries are best answered with relevant Reddit conversations, will see those conversations at the top of the page, easily getting perspectives from millions of Reddit users.

As we developed our partnership with Microsoft, we found that Power BI offered incredibly robust, and easy-to-consume business intelligence tools to turn Reddit data into clear, useful insights. Power BI’s data analysis offers flexibility to customize and even build your own modules. It also enables dynamic querying, which allows users to easily re-run and change queries in real time and customize data visualizations through multiple variables.

With the general availability of the Power BI solution templates suite for brand management and targeting on Reddit, brands and marketers can now monitor, target, and compare their Reddit footprint across communities in a flexible, convenient format. Brands can use this solution to see which communities are talking about them the most, uncover the sentiment of those conversations, and receive detailed breakdowns of their mentions and sentiment over time. Learn more about the Power BI Solution Templates here.

We hope today’s announcement is just the first step in exploring the opportunities to bring relevant content, communities, and insights from our users to brands and consumers alike. In the meantime, check out Bing’s improved search experience for yourself and learn more about Microsoft Power BI here.

The past several weeks have seen multiple surges of activism on Reddit as our users rally to save net neutrality from the FCC’s plans to gut it. In a political climate where talk of bots and astroturfing has sometimes caused skepticism when it comes to online activism, we wanted to look into the pro-net neutrality activity on the site to make sure that Reddit wasn’t being gamed by outside actors looking to manipulate our platform.

The results of this analysis were so overwhelming that we wanted to share them with the public on this day of action in support of net neutrality. Not only did we find the activity to be an authentic, truly grassroots phenomenon, but it represented some of the most fervent organic activity we have ever seen on the front page in all of Reddit’s twelve year history.

The bottom line is that real people—millions of them—care about preserving the free and open internet, and they are taking to Reddit to express themselves. Whether through telling us their personal stories or by raising an upvote for the members of Congress who refused to sell out their interests, redditors are making themselves heard on this issue. It is up to all of those in Washington who represent us to listen.

The Analysis

On November 21st, the front page of Reddit was covered with posts linking to Battle For The Net and warning about FCC Chairman Pai’s planned vote to end net neutrality on December 14th.

On December 1st, shortly after the admins at Reddit HQ gave Snoo a net neutrality makeover and posted a series of pro-net neutrality banner ads, another round of net neutrality posts from the community hit the front page. This time, they focused on campaign donation amounts that congressional representatives had received from telecom companies (most of these amounts came from this March article in The Verge).

Reddit users care about net neutrality, and the organic voting patterns we observed around these events showed it. Prominent national and international events often result in several links and self-posts on the front page. For comparison, at their peak, voting on Super Bowl and McGregor-Mayweather posts this year represented ~20% of front page votes. At the peak of these two net neutrality events, over 70% of front page votes went to net neutrality posts!

Timeline: Battle For The Net

In the morning hours (UTC) of Nov. 20th, a few Battle For The Net posts were submitted with limited success. Later that evening, the first post to hit the front page was submitted, taking 6 hours to climb there. Subsequently, the morning (UTC) of Nov. 21st saw several Battle For The Net posts submitted, with a few posts hitting the front page after 4 hours. By 3am UTC, Battle For The Net voting hit its peak, 34 hours after the first front page-reaching post was submitted. All voting patterns around this activity registered as organic according to the factors we constantly monitor to help us surface and neutralize spam and bot efforts.

Timeline: “This is my representative…”

The first “This is my representative…” post was submitted in the early morning hours (UTC) of Dec. 1st, with a crosspost hitting the front page 4.5 hours later. After a few hours of “This is my representative…” posts being met with limited success, the momentum started to build with multiple posts submitted around noon UTC, hitting the front page within an hour. By 5pm UTC, “This is my representative…” hit its peak, 13 hours after the first front page post was submitted. As with previous net neutrality activism on the site, this activity registered as authentic. For example, the geo data from the early voting on these posts came primarily from the home states of these representatives before hitting the front page and reaching a wider audience.

After the dust settled, thousands of posts and tens of thousands of comments related to Chairman Pai’s plan to gut net neutrality had been created. Tens of millions of users were informed of the threat, and millions of Reddit voters showed their support. In the end, hundreds of posts on the topic, coming from hundreds of diverse subreddits, hit Reddit’s front page.

Yet, despite the intense concern that the Reddit community demonstrated, in true Reddit form, positivity and good-natured irreverence won the day. Of the “This is my representative…” posts, the top karma-winning representatives were:

What You Can Do

The FCC’s vote on net neutrality is scheduled for this Thursday, December 14th. There is still time to tell them why they should reconsider. Go here to share your story of how the repeal of net neutrality rules would personally affect you. And go to battleforthenet.com to tell your member of Congress why he or she should call on Chairman Pai to reconsider his plan.

Today, we’re very excited to announce the launch of Endless Thread, a brand new podcast bringing some of Reddit’s most compelling stories to life with well-crafted audio narratives from the podcast pros at NPR’s Boston news station, WBUR.

Set to debut on January 12, 2018, Endless Thread will feature weekly episodes covering a wide range of stories that long-time redditors and Reddit novices alike will enjoy. The show is hosted by former Marketplace Tech host and the creator of the Codebreaker podcast Ben Brock Johnson and produced by Amory Sivertson of Modern Love: The Podcast fame.

“Reddit is one of the most formidable communities online, and its lifeblood is people from all over the world sharing and organizing around every imaginable topic, making it an incredibly valuable resource for anyone trying to understand our world,” Ben explains in WBUR’s press release earlier today.

“As a journalist, I’ve been fascinated by Reddit for years, but I’ve also become an avid redditor. I’m always surprised at what a mystery Reddit is to people who don’t use it. I’m looking forward to solving that mystery for the uninitiated, and helping redditors share their incredible, real life stories with the world.”

Endless Thread will be in good company at WBUR, the NPR station responsible for hit radio shows like Car Talk and acclaimed podcasts like Modern Love, the audio companion to the New York Times column by the same name. Listeners can expect a similar style of highly produced audio treatment with a unique, Reddit-y twist that takes you on a journey just as fascinating and unexpected as some of the best threads on our site.

You can stream or download the premiere episode from your podcast app of choice starting on January 12. In the meantime, Ben and Amory have kicked off a new Reddit user profile devoted to the show, u/Endless_Thread, and they’re doing an AMA in r/podcasts today at 2:00 PM EST.

You can learn more about the show and sign up to be notified when the first episode is out by checking out wbur.org/endlessthread.

No one gets into the holiday spirit quite like redditors do, so we wanted to highlight some of our favorite Turkey Day-themed posts from communities across the site. Over the past few days, we’ve seen everything from r/aww-inspiring pics of holiday pets to a site-wide surge of activism over Thanksgiving, so sit back, pour yourself a steamy mug of hot apple cider, and enjoy this cornucopia of content from some very creative users we’re thankful to have.

Grateful for an Open Internet

But first, redditors have proven that their passion for the open internet knows no bounds. In response to the pre-Thanksgiving news that the FCC plans to repeal its 2015 net neutrality rules, hundreds of thousands of redditors in communities large and small—from r/technology and r/politics to video game communities, r/PrequelMemes, and even r/trashpandas—have banded together to drive users to Battle for the Net’s website to learn how they can fight to protect the open internet.

Many redditors took note of the holiday timing of the announcement, which might otherwise have helped a story like this escape widespread public outcry. Thanks to the passion and organization of our users, however, yesterday’s front page ensured that anyone who visited Reddit was informed of the FCC’s announcement—and encouraged to go to Battle for the Net over their Thanksgiving break (hint, hint).

Okay, now back to the Xenomorphic turkeys and cute animals.

Home for the Hawwlidays

Thanksgiving is all about spending time with the ones you love, but it’s always nice to bring home a new loved one for the holidays—especially when they’re covered in fur and unable to start political arguments at dinner.

A few grateful redditors in r/aww have shared photos of the new family members they adopted this November, and these adorable floofs already look right at home, pacing under the table as they wait for fallen scraps of turkey.

Wood You Serve Dinner in This?

Redditors in the r/woodworking and r/woodcarving communities were quick to praise this post by u/orleansville, featuring a unique, turkey-shaped serving tray carefully carved by a talented friend. The community’s rave reviews ranged from “A bit freaky looking, but masterfully executed” to “What an abomination. I love it.”

A Very Spicy History Lesson

By now, we’ve all heard the traditional origin story of Thanksgiving and the impressive list of historical inaccuracies with said Thanksgiving story, but Reddit’s history buffs know that there are a lot more topics to explore around the holidays.

Take this fascinating post from r/history, for example, on how tropical spices like cinnamon and nutmeg became associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The Greatest Turkey Ever Made…

Every November, social media sites light up with carefully framed photos of perfectly basted turkeys on beautifully set tables, earning the praise of friends, family, and followers alike. But on Reddit, one particular Thanksgiving dish has captured users’ respect and upvotes more than any traditional turkey ever could: a “100% edible roasted Alien Facehugger” composed of chicken and crab by u/36monsters.

…And Some Really Close Runners-up

Of course, there are many ways to have a nontraditional Thanksgiving. Perhaps no community has done a better job of proving that than r/shittyfoodporn. Sure, these might not be the most “photogenic” meals, or the most “palatable,” but they are food and they are somewhat Thanksgiving-themed.

At the start of 2017, our CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman announced our plans to redesign Reddit’s desktop site. “This is a massive project, and the transition is going to take some time,” he wrote. “We are going to need a lot of volunteers to help with testing.”

Well, ten months and several rounds of user and moderator testing later, we’re excited to share the very first look at the upcoming redesign. While we still have lots of improvements to the UI, feature set, and moderation flow still in the works, we’re excited to start by sharing a preview of two of the most important features in the redesign: a new set of community styling tools and an easier way for users to post to their favorite communities.

The End of “Dystopian Craigslist”

But first, here’s a quick recap of why we’re redesigning our desktop site to begin with.

As Steve put it in his AMA back in January, “The desktop website has not meaningfully changed in many years; it is not particularly welcoming to new users (or old for that matter); and still runs code from the earliest days of Reddit over ten years ago.”

“Reddit grows primarily through word of mouth. Many of us evangelize Reddit and tell people how awesome it is, what an impact it’s made in their life, how much it makes them laugh, etc., and then when those new people decide to check out Reddit for the first time they’re greeted with dystopian Craigslist. We’d like to fix that.”

This year, teams across the company—from Design and Community to Product and Engineering—have been working together to do just that, rebuilding the desktop site to be more welcoming to new users and easier for moderators while iterating based on feedback from redditors at every stage.

Simpler Community Styling

One of the biggest areas of improvement we’ve focused on is offering simpler community styling. Reddit has tens of thousands of communities organized around every topic imaginable, and many of these mod teams have invested a significant amount of time into creating a unique aesthetic that feels like home.

For redditors unfamiliar with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), however, community customization can be difficult. With the redesign, we’ve created an all-new styling system that empowers mod teams to stylize their Reddit communities with design choices as unique as the communities themselves.

If you’ve ever created your own community, you know just how difficult it can be to alter the look of it through CSS, especially if you don’t have a background in coding, so we’re working on a number of features that make the customization process easier for moderators.

We still have a lot of work and testing to do before we have full feature parity and a design that we’re confident new and existing users will love; but in the meantime, here’s the preview you’ve all been waiting for, from Steve’s fireside chat at Web Summit 2017 earlier today:

Above is a sneak peek at what the r/aww and r/analog communities could look like in the redesign, with three different viewing options: card view (featuring already expanded image posts, for easy browsing in media-rich communities), classic view (similar to the layout of Reddit’s current listings pages), and compact view (for users who want to see the maximum number of posts per page, with the option of expanding images by clicking the media icon).

Easier Posting Flow

As we continue to improve our styling features, we’re also working to make other key parts of the Reddit experience more user-friendly—and versatile. One of the most central improvements we’ve made is revamping how users post to their favorite communities.

With Reddit’s current design, posting can be difficult for new users to figure out. With the redesign, we want to make sure that when redditors share a photo, image, or text post with a community, it’s easy for them to see that community’s rules, add all the necessary flair and tagging, and format text posts to their liking, all within the submission page.

Here’s another mock-up to show the posting flow for a redditor who wants to share an image with the r/aww community. For the sake of making this a truly “aww”-inducing mock-up, let’s say it’s an image of their adorable puppy named Banjo.

If you’re more of a lurker, you might not notice a few big upgrades to the existing submission page. Here’s what’s different:

simpler toggling between image or video, link, and text posts;

a drop-down menu to change the community where you’re posting;

a row of buttons at the bottom allowing you to add post flair, spoiler tags, and NSFW tags directly from the submission page;

prominently displayed community rules; and

an array of rich text options (no elaborate markdown required!).

We’ll be expanding our group of volunteer testers to more moderators and users soon and sharing more previews of our designs as we continue to iterate, so stay tuned for further updates. And in case you missed it, you can watch Steve’s full fireside chat at Web Summit here.

Our thanks to all of the users and moderators who have participated in testing so far for their invaluable feedback and to the r/aww and r/analog moderators for letting us test out the new structured styling on their communities.

Comments for Upvoted

Upvoted's traffic is ranked globally

We found Upvoted because it was an editor’s pick on DailyTekk’s The best, most-interesting websites of 2016. The Reddit-owned, WordPress-powered blog features articles on trending topics from Reddit. Most articles feature an editorial which includes quotes from the Reddit site. The site’s tagline is, “A Redditorial Publication.”

Screenshot of the Upvoted homepage

They sort all their content by topic. They also have sections dedicated to Podcasts and Videos.

WIRED points out that Upvoted is essentially an experiment of Reddit’s. They are looking to grow. On their homepage, they have a link for advertisers. The site will not have banner ads but will instead have featured posts where advertisers can hire someone from Upvoted’s editorial team to write about their product or service.

WIRED also points out that the site does not allow comments. They also mention that, contrary to the name Upvoted, there will be no voting on the website.

Upvoted article screenshot

Is Upvoted Worth Your Time?

If you like Reddit, chances are you will like Upvoted. The site is similar to our website in some ways. They take a popular thread, summarize it, and add the content they think is juiciest to their “Redditorial”. The only caveat is that you miss out on the troll commentators, the backbone of Reddit’s popularity. Regardless, Upvoted is worth a peek if you are looking for trending topics from Reddit.